'Ambitious.Joyce Carol Oates remains implacable, unstoppable. Where, where was she, what was the name of the hotel hed brought her to, a paradise for honeymooners, and Niagara Falls was the Honeymoon Capital of the World, a pulse in her head beat so violently she couldnt think. Set against the mythic-historic backdrop of Niagara Falls in the mid-twentieth century, this haunting exploration of the American family in crisis is a stunning achievement from 'one of the great artistic forces of our time' ( The Nation). But the tragedy by which they were thrown together begins to shadow them, damaging their idyll with distrust, greed, and even murder. What follows is a passionate love affair, marriage, and family-a seemingly perfect existence. Weve analyzed hundreds of millions of words, from thousands of different authors, training our linguistic models to recognize the most vivid words in the. At her side is confirmed bachelor and pillar of the community Dirk Burnaby, who is unexpectedly drawn to this plain, strange woman.

Ariah, 'the Widow Bride of the Falls,' begins a relentless seven-day vigil in the mist, waiting for his body to be found. It is 1950 and, after a disastrous honeymoon night, Ariah Erskine's young husband throws himself into the roaring waters of Niagara Falls. This book alone places Joyce Carol Oates definitively in the company of the Great American Novelists.About the Book In her novel, set against the mythic-historic backdrop of Niagara Falls in the mid-20th century, Oates explores the American family in crisis. This novel of tremendous sweep and pace is about the American family in crisis – but also about America itself in the mid-20th century. As Ariah’s children learn that their past is enmeshed with a hushed-up scandal involving radioactive waste materials, they must confront not only their personal history but America’s murky past: the despoiling of the American landscape and the corruption and greed of the massive industrial expansion of the 1950s and 1960s. So it all begins, in the 1950s, with the dark foreboding of the Falls the sinister background to events.įrom this cataclysmic event unfurls a drama of parents and their children of secrets and sins of lawsuits, murder and, eventually redemption. During her vigil, an unlikely new love story begins to unfold when she meets a wealthy lawyer who is transfixed by her strange, otherworldly gaze. For two weeks, Ariah, the deserted bride, waits by the side of the roaring waterfall for news of her husband’s recovered body. He’s a newly-wed, and his bride has been left behind in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding. This novel is the crowning achievement of Joyce Carol Oates’s career to date.Ī man climbs over the railings and plunges into Niagara Falls.

Them is the third novel in the Wonderland Quartet. It is, raves The New York Times, a superbly accomplished vision. A novel of tremendous sweep and pace about the American family in crisis – but also about America itself in the mid-20th century. Winner of the National Book Award, them is an enthralling novel about love, class, race, and the inhumanity of urban life.

The falls by joyce carol oates